by Anne Perry
Sutton nodded. “Mebbe yer right,” he conceded. “Don’t you go down no ’oles in the ground neither, Blackie. If they bump inter a river accidental, it in’t gonna care that yer a tosher an’ ’ave worked these ways all yer life. It’ll come down there like a train, faster than a man can run, an’ pushin’ everythin’ in front o’ it.”
“I don’ go there no more,” Blackie said with a twist of his mouth. “I know which ones is safe an’ which in’t. But yer listen ter me, Sutton! Water, gas, fire, an’ rats in’t all there is ter watch fer! There’s money in this, so there’s men as’d commit murder. Keep out o’ it, see? Go, an’ take that lad there wi’ the eyes out of ’ere. I dunno wot yer come fer, but there’s nothin’ ’ere fer you.”
“I reckon not,” Sutton agreed. Taking Hester by the arm, holding her hard, he turned and started back the way they had come. They had gone a hundred yards before Hester dared speak.
“Mary can’t have come down here, surely?” she asked a little shakily.
“Mebbe, mebbe not, but they know about ’er,” Sutton replied. “She must ’ave asked a lot o’ questions—the right ones, by the sound o’ it.”
“But they wouldn’t tell her anything,” she protested. “What harm could she have done that they killed her?”
“I dunno,” he admitted unhappily. “But if anyone killed ’er, it must’a bin Toby Argyll. Thing is, ’oo told ’im ter?”
“I need to know!” she insisted. “Otherwise, how do we prove that she didn’t kill herself?”
“I ’ave ter know, too,” he agreed. “Or ’ow do we stop ’em from goin’ on faster and faster till they bring the ’ole bleedin’ roof in an’ mebbe bury an ’undred men alive? Or worse ’n that, set the gas alight an’ start ’nother Great Fire o’ London?”
She said nothing. She did not know the answer, but it troubled her. If Mary had been right, could she possibly have been the only one to see the danger? Surely her questions alone would have been sufficient to alarm other people. Was that what Alan Argyll had been concerned about, not the actual situation but the fears and suspicion Mary was stirring up? Was there ever cause to think it could have started a panic?
“They don’t seem afraid,” she said aloud. “They don’t really think it’ll happen, do they?”
Sutton looked at her. “Afraid o’ wot?” he said gently. “Think about it too ’ard, an’ yer’ll be afraid o’ the ’ole o’ life. Bein’ ’urt, bein’ ’ungry, bein’ cold, bein’ alone. Or yer mean bein’ drownded or buried alive? Don’t think too far ahead. Just do terday.”
“Is that what Argyll counts on? Poor Mary.”
“Dunno,” he confessed. “But it don’t make sense like it is.”
She did not argue, and they walked in companionable silence to the bus stop.
SIX
Monk was standing in the kitchen when he heard Hester come in at the front door. He spun around and strode into the hall. He immediately saw how she was dressed and that her face was pinched and weary. Her hair was straggling as if she had tied it in a knot rather than bothered dressing it at all, and her sleeves and trousers were wet.
“Where in hell have you been?” he said abruptly, alarm making his voice sharper than he had meant. He was very close to her, almost touching her. “What’s happened?”
She did not even try to prevaricate. “I’ve been in the tunnels, with Sutton. I’m perfectly all right, but there’s something terribly wrong there,” she said, looking directly at him. “It isn’t as easy as I thought. The engines are enormous, and they’re shaking the ground. It’s nothing to do with what James Havilland or Mary discovered. They all know it’s dangerous; it’s part of the job.” Her eyes were searching his face now, looking for help, explanations to make sense of it. “They all know about the fact that there are streams underground, and wells, and that the clay slips. Hundreds of people live down there! But Mary was going from one person to another asking questions. What could she have been looking for, and why did it matter?”
Monk forced himself to be gentle as he accompanied Hester into the warmth of the kitchen. He was not in the least domestic by nature, but he had nonetheless cleaned out the stove and relit it. With Hester’s absences in the clinic caring for the desperately ill and dying, he had been obliged to learn.
He took her coat from her and hung it up on the peg, where it could dry. She made no attempt to be evasive, which in itself alarmed him. She must be very badly frightened. He could see it in her eyes in the brightness of the kitchen gaslight. “Where did you learn all this?” he asked.
“The Thames Tunnel,” she answered. “Not alone!” she added hastily.
“I was perfectly safe.” Involuntarily she shuddered, her body in a spasm of uncontrollable memory. She pushed a shaking hand through her hair.
“William, there are people who live down there, all the time! Like…rats. They never come up to the wind or the light.”
“I know. But it’s probably no more a root of crime than the waterside slums or the docks, places like Jacob’s Island.” He put his arms around her and held her close. “You’re not setting up any clinic for them!”
She laughed in spite of herself, and ended up coughing. “I hadn’t even thought of it. But now that—”
“Hester!”
She smiled brightly at him.
He breathed out slowly, forcing himself to be calmer. Then he put more water in the kettle and slid it onto the hob. There was fresh bread and butter and cheese, and a slice of decent cake in the pantry.
“William…”
He stopped and faced her, waiting.
At last she spoke. “Mary went to all sorts of places and asked questions about rivers and clay, and how many people had been hurt, but she asked about engineers as well. And apparently she knew something about them—knew one sort from another. She took terrible risks. Either she didn’t realize, or…” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She was so tired her skin was white, and in spite of his holding her, she had not stopped shivering.
“Do you think she was foolish enough to be unaware of the dangers?” he asked.
“No,” she said in a soft, unhappy voice, but she did not pull away from him. “I think she cared about the truth so passionately that she preferred to take the risk rather than run away. I think she was afraid of a real disaster, worse than the Fleet.”
“Because it’s in a tunnel?”
“Fire,” she told him. “Gas pipes go up into houses aboveground as well.”
He understood. The possibilities were terrifying. “And they know?”
She nodded and moved back a step at last as the shivering eased. “It looks like it. She just couldn’t prove it yet. Or maybe she could. Do you think that’s why she was killed?”
“It could be,” he said gently. “And it also might be why her father was killed, so don’t imagine they would give a moment’s thought as to whether or not they should kill you if they see you as a threat! So—”
“I know that! I have no intention of going back there again, I promise.”
He looked at her closely, steadily, and saw the fear in her eyes. She would keep her word; he did not need to ask her for a promise. “Not only your life,” he said, his voice softer. “The lives of others, too.”
“I know. What are you going to do?”
“Make the tea,” he said ruefully. “Then I’m going to consider who had the opportunity to kill James Havilland. As for Mary’s death—we’ll never prove that Toby meant to kill her, and since he died as well, the matter of justice has been rather well settled.”
“Do you think she held on to him and took him with her on purpose?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I think she could do that.”
“It isn’t enough, though, is it?”
He could never lie to her. She could see right inside him, whether she meant to or not.
“No. It doesn’t make sense that Alan Argyll would take a risk like that. It would ruin him. There’s somethin
g else that we don’t know. We haven’t got all of it.”
She put her arms around him again, holding him more tightly.
In the morning the situation seemed less clear-cut. If it had been Toby Argyll, young and ambitious, who was behind it all, then he was beyond anyone’s reach now, and blackening his name would be seen as pointlessly cruel. Alan Argyll would do everything possible to prevent that, and Monk would earn for the River Police a bitter enemy. His proof would have to be absolute. No one would care about rescuing the reputation of James Havilland, and even less about Mary’s. Naturally Farnham would see no purpose in it at all.
Monk’s accountability to Farnham was one of the prices to pay for the authority and regular income his uniform gave him. He did not fear financial insecurity this winter as he had last. Thinking of ways to skirt around Farnham’s prejudices was a small enough price to pay.
He needed to know a lot more about both Toby and Alan Argyll. It was difficult to form an opinion of someone who was dead, especially if he had died young and tragically. No one liked to speak of such individuals except in hushed and careful tones, as if death removed all weaknesses from them, not to mention actual sins.
Perhaps a good place to begin would be with those who had cared for the other dead people, James and Mary Havilland. This time he would see the housekeeper, Mrs. Kitching. He might even ask Cardman again, and persuade him to be rather less stiffly discreet.
Cardman greeted Monk with courtesy. He stood in the morning room to answer Monk’s questions, and if his mask slipped, it was only to show a swift anger that Mary Havilland was regarded by the church as a sinner who, by the finality of death, had forfeited her chance of repentance.
Monk felt helpless to reach out to the man’s hard, isolated grief. Cardman was intensely private; perhaps it was his only armor. Monk had no wish to breach it. Instead he asked if he might see the housekeeper, and was conducted along the corridor and, after a brief enquiry, shown into her room.
“Good morning, Mrs. Kitching,” he began.
“Hmph,” she replied, her back straight as a ruler as she sat opposite him in her small, neat sitting room. She looked him up and down, noting his police uniform jacket—a sartorial burden he bore with difficulty—and then his white shirt collar and beautiful leather boots. “Police officer, is it? More of the officer, and less of the police, maybe? And what is it you’re wanting now? I’ll not say ill of Miss Havilland, so you can save your time. I’ll go to my own grave saying she was a good woman, and I’ll tell the good Lord so to his face.”
“I’m investigating why she died, and who was the cause of it, Mrs. Kitching. I’d like to know a little more about the other people concerned in her life. For example, did you know Mr. Toby Argyll? I imagine he called here to see her quite often, especially after her father’s death?”
“And before,” she said quickly.
“Were they very close?”
“Depends what you mean.” It was not a prevarication; she wished to be exact. Her eyes were more direct than those of any servant he had questioned before, at least as long as he could remember.
A thought flashed across his mind. “Will you be looking for another position after this, Mrs. Kitching?”
“I’ve no need to. I’ve saved a bit. I’m going to live with my brother and his wife, in Dorking. I’m just staying here till matters are settled.”
He smiled. She was exactly the witness he was looking for, and so he returned to his earlier question. “What I mean, Mrs. Kitching, was he in love with her, and she with him?”
She gave a little sigh. “She certainly wasn’t in love with him, but she started out liking him well enough. He was very personable, and he had wit and intelligence.”
“And how did he feel about her?”
“Oh, she was handsome, Miss Mary.” She blinked and took a deep breath. It was very clearly difficult for her to govern her distress. She glared at him, as if waking her grief were his fault. “That’s what most gentlemen like, until they know you a little better.”
“And then?” He kept his expression perfectly bland.
“Then they’d rather you didn’t have too many opinions of your own,” she said tartly, the tears standing out in her eyes. The thought flashed to him that perhaps she was thinking not only of Mary Havilland, but perhaps of some grief of her own now long in the past but still tender, still haunting her with loss. Many cooks and housekeepers were given the honorary title of Mrs., even if they had never married. It was a mark of adulthood rather than marriage, just as when a man moves from being master to mister. It was a distinction that had not occurred to him before. But then women were not legal entities in the same way that men were.
Again he found his sympathy for Mary clouding his judgment. He was imagining her as someone with courage, honor, and wit—someone he would have liked. But it might not have been so at all. In the beginning, he had loathed Hester. No, that was not true—he had been fascinated by her, attracted to her, but afraid of his own weakness. He had been certain that he wanted someone far more comfortable: a soft woman who did not challenge him, did not force him to live up to the best in himself, sometimes even beyond what he believed was in him. Hester’s gentleness was deeper than mere agreeability; it was a passion, a tenderness of honesty, not of indifference or lack of the courage or interest to argue. Never, ever was it the lack of an opinion of her own.
Before her, he had fallen in love with quiet, discreet women who never argued, and then realized he was desperately, soul-achingly lonely. Nothing within them touched anything deeper than his skin.
What had happened to Toby Argyll? Had he had the courage to love Mary? Or had he found her too challenging, too thwarting of his vanity?
“You say he did not like her opinions, Mrs. Kitching, but was he in love with her?”
For the first time in their interview her uncertainty was sharp in her face.
He smiled bleakly. “My wife and I frequently disagree. Yet she would be loyal to me and love me through anything, good or bad. I know this because she has done so, without ever telling me I was right, if she thought otherwise.”
She stared at him, shaking her head. “Then you wouldn’t have liked Mr. Toby,” she said with conviction. “He expected obedience. He had the money, you see, and ambitions. And he was clever.”
“Cleverer than his brother?” he said quickly.
“I don’t know. But I’ve a fancy he was beginning to think so.” She suddenly realized how bold she was being in so speaking her mind; a flash of alarm crossed her face, then disappeared again. She was tasting a new and previously unimagined freedom.
In spite of the gravity of their discussion, Monk found himself smiling at her. Cardman would have been horrified. She was perhaps a year or two older than he. Monk wondered what the relationship had been between them. Superficial? Or had their station in life prevented what would have been a testing but rewarding love?
He thrust the notion from his mind. “Mr. Alan Argyll was different?” he asked. “And was Mrs. Argyll at all like her sister?”
Mrs. Kitching’s face hardened. “Mr. Alan’s a very clever man, a lot cleverer than Mr. Toby realized,” she answered without hesitation. “Mr. Toby might have thought he’d get the upper hand in time, but he wouldn’t. Miss Mary told me that. Not that I didn’t think so myself, just seeing them in the withdrawing room. Miss Jenny’s a realist, never was a dreamer like Miss Mary. Easier to get along with. Never asks for the impossible or fights battles she can’t win. Been a good wife to Mr. Alan. I suppose Mr. Toby thought Miss Mary’d be the same. Well, he thought wrong!” She said that last with considerable satisfaction. Then she remembered again that Mary was dead. The tears washed down her cheeks, and this time she was unable to control them.
Monk was embarrassed, and angry with himself for being so. Why should he? Mrs. Kitching’s was an honest grief; there was nothing in it to apologize for.
He thanked her with deep sincerity and then excused himself.
By midday Monk was back across the city at the construction works again. This time he found Aston Sixsmith aboveground and able to speak more easily. There was no point in asking him about Mary. He would be unlikely to know anything of use, but he might know something of the relationship between the two brothers. He would have to be far more circumspect here. Sixsmith would be loyal out of the need to guard his job, even if not from personal regard.
“Was Mr. Toby Argyll aware of Havilland’s fear of tunnels?” he asked. They were standing on the bare clay at least a couple of hundred yards from the nearest machine, and the noise of it seemed distant in the brief winter sun.
Sixsmith pulled his wide mouth tight. “I’m afraid we all were. If you were watching the man, you couldn’t miss it. And to be honest, Mr. Monk, it’s part of your job to look for the man who’ll crack because he’s a danger to everyone else, especially if he’s in charge of anything. I’m sorry.” His highly expressive face was touched with sadness. “I liked Havilland, but liking’s got nothing to do with safety. If he’d gone barmy or started telling the men that there was a river going to break through the walls, or choke-damp in the air, or a cave-in coming, he’d have started a panic. God knows what could have happened.” He looked at Monk questioningly to see if he understood.
Monk understood completely. A man of Havilland’s seniority and experience losing his nerve would be enough to create hysteria that could bring about the precise disaster he was afraid of. At the very least it would disrupt work, perhaps for days, and consequently the next project would be sure to go to a rival.
“Did you suspect it could be deliberate?” he asked.
Sixsmith was momentarily puzzled. “Deliberate weakness? He’d make himself unemployable anywhere else, which would be stupid. Why would any man do that? And he and both the Argyll brothers were friends. Family, in fact.”
“I meant sabotage, for a suitable reward,” Monk explained, but it sounded ugly as he said it, and he saw the revulsion in Sixsmith’s face.